


the photographer's handsome

by rivernyx (orphan_account)



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: ??? I guess???, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, How Do I Tag, M/M, Marvin: Oblivious Disaster Gay Extraordinaire, Unresolved Sexual Tension, With All Of My Heart, Wow I Love Whizzvin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 15:12:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17046020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/rivernyx
Summary: “Yes, clothes,” Marvin says, deadpan, “They’re fabric sown together, that you wear—”“An abomination, that’s what you’re wearing,” Whizzer Brown decides sourly. Marvin’s cheeks heat up even more, though out of embarrassment or offense, he isn’t sure. Whizzer walks back inside, and Marvin follows after him for no damn good reason other than to follow, still unsure as to why he’d even come here in the first place. He sits down on a ratty, worn couch. Whizzer’s fiddling with something on his camera.On a completely unrelated note, in a completely objective manner, Marvin observes that Whizzer Brown has really nice hands.Or: Trina says something about a family picture, and Marvin pays a visit to the studio.





	the photographer's handsome

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Trina at the Photographer's (A Three-Part Mini-Opera)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11530788) by [worrylesswritemore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/worrylesswritemore/pseuds/worrylesswritemore). 



> the??? characterization might be whack as fuck but this is my first contribution to the fandom pls dont kill mejshdgfaghjk
> 
> inspired!!! by [worrylesswritemore's sopranoverse ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/worrylesswritemore/pseuds/worrylesswritemore) and the [ swapsettos au ](https://appleflavoredkitkats.tumblr.com/post/162231263408/finally-i-finished-this-hooraay-this-is-basically)by appleflavoredkitkats it was based off of
> 
> so,, without further ado, i hope you all enjoy-

 Marvin’s in the middle of cooking dinner when Trina gets home. He knows better than to expect something like a sweet “honey-I’m-home” kiss, and he’s sure she knows better than to expect a “welcome-home” one from his as well. Still, he figures he should at least ask her the obligatory question of, “How was your day, sweetheart?”

 So he does.

 Trina launches off into a long-winded description of her day that Marvin finds himself only half-listening to. He’s trying not to burn the chicken when Trina brings up the prospect of taking a family photo.

 “We don’t have any,” she says, and Marvin’s brain switches from only half-heartedly processing information to actually deciphering what she has to say. “It’ll be good for us— as a family, you know.”

 Marvin bites his lip and swallows down a remark about the psychiatrist living under the same roof as _their family_ , the wiry, annoying and terrible excuse of a psychiatrist with whom Marvin has to share a table. Who, by the way, had been the main catalyst of the unravelling of their perfect, tight-knit family, like it was Mendel’s fault that Marvin couldn’t sleep with his wife, couldn’t get it up for her, couldn’t make love to her even if he wanted to.

 And God, how he wanted to. How he wanted to be a perfect, normal husband to Trina. How he wanted to be a perfect dad to Jason. How he wanted to be the perfect example of a man of the house— but he wasn’t, _isn’t,_ because something is wrong. Something is very wrong.

 And God, how he wishes he knows what that something is.

 “A family picture,” Marvin says, blinking. What would they do with it, even? Hang it on a wall to showcase how dull and lifeless their family actually is? Put it in a photo album they’ll probably never open again afterwards? “Well, great,”

 He wonders what it’ll be like, the photograph. Empty for sure; soulless. Heck, maybe the photo would be bursting at the seams with emotions for all the wrong reasons.

 “The photographer, Whizzer,” at this, Marvin can’t help snorting inwardly because what the _fuck_ , what kind of name’s _Whizzer?_ “suggested it. I’ve been hanging around his studio a bit lately. He’s kind of a pseudo-psychiatrist, and God knows my psychiatrist is shit,” Marvin snorts again, out loud this time. Trina shoots him a _look_. Marvin waves a hand, telling her to carry on. “And we’re not… friends, but, I was thinking about it, and…”

 She trails off and ends her rambling with an ever-so-eloquent shrug of her shoulders. Marvin resists the urge to roll his eyes and goes back to his cooking instead.

 “What, so you’re sleeping with someone new this time?” Marvin can’t help but ask, his words coming out a little wry despite the forced lightness injected into his voice. Trina makes an offended sound, hand flying over her heart.

 Marvin moves the food around in the pan, making the chicken’s sauce even out.

 “He’s not—I’m not— Jesus Christ, Marvin, what kind of person do you think I am?”

 Marvin only shrugs and adds a little salt to the pan. He leans down and breathes in the smoke a little.

 Not quite cooked yet. A few minutes more.

 “I mean,” Trina carries on, her voice pinched, “Can you really blame me? Is it somehow _my_ fault that my husband won’t have sex with me after our honeymoon.”

Marvin looks at her then back at the food. Her face is read, her shoulders tense and raised. Her fists clenched.

 “Is it really Mendel’s fault that he wanted to give me something you, Marvin, explicitly could have—”

 Marvin counts to five, then ten, then—

 “—but, you know, _blatantly refused to_?”

 “Oh, so we’re back to this!” Marvin whips around his hands in the air and gesturing angrily at nothing in particular. Back to the guilt-tripping, the snide comments, the fights— Marvin hates this. Marvin absolutely despises all of this.

 “Well of course we’re back to this!” Trina slams her hands on top of the counter. She curls her fingers around the tablecloth, “If we’d been a normal couple— you know, a normal married couple—”

 And that word comes to play again— “normal.”

 Something about it always leaves a bad taste in Marvin’s mouth. something about it makes him want to gag, makes him grimace, makes him want to rinse his mouth with soap like he was still five years old and the word “normal” was an off-limits swear that his mother’d guaranteed he’d be sentenced to hell for even muttering.

 Okay, so what even _is_ normal? Having little sex? Having a moderate amount of sex? Having hot, passionate romps nearly nightly like horny teenagers running on hormone spikes and the desperate need for physical affection?

 That’s the category Trina and Mendel seem to fall into.

 “Love isn’t sex, Trina,” Marvin says stiffly, his knuckles white from how hard his grip is around the ladle.

 “You say that!” Trina accentuates each of her next words with the side of her fist against the countertop, “Every! Fucking! Time—”

 Marvin runs his hands through his curls. A headache is starting to thrum in the back of his mind.

 Christ, he shouldn’t have said anything, because everything always works out better that way. Marvin thinks he should really, really learn how to keep his mouth shut. He’s so— tired of all this. It’s all so _exhausting_.

 “And please give me a break, I’m trying to keep this family together—”

 “You think I’m _not_ —?”

 “Jesus, Trina—”

 “And you wouldn’t even have to if only you had—”

 “Dad? Mom?”

 Jason’s sudden interruption shocks the both of them out of their yelling match. He’s standing by the door, eyes flitting between the two of them as his frown gets deeper and the skin between his eyebrows creases in distress. They both go quiet, immediately turning to the child.

 “Hey, sport,” Marvin says, voice digressing to something much, much softer. “Sorry. Your mom and I just… had a disagreement.”

 “I figured,” Jason mutters, fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

 “Sorry for the yelling, honey,” Trina’s mouth stretches into a weak imitation of a smile.

 Jason shrugs. He looks at her in acknowledgement, then past her to address his father. “When’s dinner gonna be ready?”

 “Um,” Marvin pauses, “About… five minutes. Why don’t you go and set the table?”

 Marvin wonders if this is considered normal behaviour for a family. Probably not. He couldn’t be so sure, though.

 

* * *

 

 

 The photography business’s got a pretty tacky name, just like its owner. _Whizzer Brown._ Marvin still can’t quite wrap his head around it.

 Marvin stares at the door, a hesitant hand raised and about to knock. The hand stalls about an inch before the wooden surface.

 He contemplates just heading home. What is he even doing here?

 He sighs and steps back, lowering his hand. Then he jumps back when the door suddenly opens and a bunch of people make their way out. A family, he realizes— mother and father and son and daughter. Everyone’s talking and laughing and looking like they actually enjoy each other’s company.

 It stings a little, somewhere in his chest. It’s an empty kind of sting.

 He scoffs at himself as the group grows farther and farther away. So maybe he’s a little bitter. Maybe he’s a little envious. So what?

 “It’s kind of a rare sight, that kinda family,” someone says. Marvin jolts out of his little stupor and spots who’d rudely interrupted his train of thought— it turns out to be a man a little younger than him. He’s tall— taller than Marvin is, at least. Pretty attractive… wait, no.

 “Really,” Marvin says, his gaze pointedly sliding to the happy family going their own way. He wipes his palms on the rough denim of his own jeans. The other man hums and looks at Marvin. Then he promptly raises his eyebrows.

 “What the fuck are you wearing?”

 “Clothes,” Marvin huffs smartly. Speaking of clothes, the other man’s outfit beneath the leather jacket looks uncomfortably tight. Especially the jeans. They must be pretty warm to be in, too— there’s a trickle of sweat rolling down the stranger’s neck.

 “Clothes,” the stranger, whom Marvin smartly assumes to be the one and only Whizzer Brown, repeats incredulously, as if the mere notion of Marvin considering his current outfit as _clothes_ is ridiculous. Still, his response forces Marvin to actually look at his face, and no—Marvin had not been looking at Whizzer Brown’s shoulders and Adam’s apple and jawline, _shut_ up.

 He feels heat start to prickle at the skin of his neck as Whizzer Brown roves a scrutinizing gaze all over him, eyes narrowed. Marvin curls and uncurls his toes inside his shoes. He tries not to bounce on the balls of his feet.

 “Yes, clothes,” Marvin says, deadpan, “They’re fabric sown together, that you wear—”

 “An abomination, _that’s_ what you’re wearing,” Whizzer Brown decides sourly. Marvin’s cheeks heat up even more, though out of embarrassment or offense, he isn’t sure. Whizzer walks back inside, and Marvin follows after him for no damn good reason other than to follow, still unsure as to why he’d even come here in the first place. He sits down on a ratty, worn couch. Whizzer’s fiddling with something on his camera.

 On a completely unrelated note, in a completely objective manner, Marvin observes that Whizzer Brown has really nice hands.

 Marvin shakes his head and diverts his attention to the many family portraits on the walls. From the corner of his eye, he can see Whizzer’s lips quirk just slightly, and Marvin chalks it off to his eyes playing tricks on him. His brain’s probably just shitting itself. Yep. That.

 Dead eyes belonging to empty family photographs surround him. They make Marvin shift in his seat. Whizzer’s doing that thing again— that _thing_ being looking Marvin up and down with a predatory gaze hidden under a veil of faux innocence.

 Marvin toys mindlessly at where the band around his ring finger used to be. He stands and pretends to examine the many photographs.

 “Loveless marriage?” he suddenly hears Whizzer ask from behind him. Marvin chokes on air for a moment and turns around, and he finds that Whizzer’s looking at him with a raised eyebrow and a weird smile.

 “Come again?”

 Whizzer laughs a little. It’s kind of melodic. Kind of sweet. It’s a nice laugh, okay, Whizzer Brown’s got a nice laugh, “Trust me, I should know the type.” There’s a split second of when his bottom lip gets caught between his teeth, and Marvin finds that he has to exert a lot of effort to pry his stare away from Whizzer and bitten lips to the wall.

  “Damn, I really guess love _is_ blind,” Whizzer comments. He’s doing the _thing_ again. Marvin very subtly tries to rub his cheeks.

 Marvin blinks, “What do you mean by that?” he asks, squinting at Whizzer with furrowed brows as he tries to decipher what on Earth he could mean. Whizzer waves a hand in dismissal.

 “Nothing. Love’s pretty messy isn’t it?”

 “Mhm. It should get glasses. You know, the guy she left me for has worse fashion choices than I do,”

 Whizzer laughs again, shaking his head, and Marvin thinks it’s strangely ironic how he’s standing here discussing the blindness of love with a photographer of all people. A really handsome photographer, objectively speaking of course. He looks back at the wall.

 The very interesting wall.

 With very interesting photographs.

 Marvin wrings his wrists. He doesn’t think this is normal.

 “So I doubt you’re here to look at those boring old photographs,” Whizzer says. Marvin blinks. Right, he’s still here. For some reason. He clears his throat.

 “My ex. She, uh, said something about taking a family picture here. You know each other, or something,”

 Whizzer Brown raises an eyebrow at him again. Marvin can clearly see the amusement that pulls at his lips this time. Is he— is he _laughing_ at Marvin? The tips of Marvin’s ears feel on fire. “I know a lot of people,” Whizzer Brown says.

 “Yeah I— of course you do. I know,” Marvin mutters. He hears Whizzer Brown actually _laugh_ this time around, louder than the last time, and Marvin scowls. Whizzer only laughs harder. And Marvin can’t help but feel his own mouth being pulled into a small grin as well because his laughter is at least a little contagious, damn it.

 Then the laughter fades off until Whizzer is just smiling at Marvin.

 And Marvin’s probably smiling right back at him, too.

 Fuck, okay.

 Marvin doesn’t think this is normal, but he can’t be sure. Maybe Whizzer’s just like this around everyone? Snarky and sassy and easily amused? Maybe he just laughs this easily, the corners of his eyes crinkling and the little dimples popping on his cheeks and his eyes shining a little under the artificial lighting in the studio.

 “I’m Marvin,” he finally says, holding out a hand.

 Whizzer Brown blinks down on it in confusion for a moment, and Marvin can almost see the clockwork going on in his head. “ _Oh._ Trina’s ex, right? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

 “Lucky me,” Marvin says dryly, hand still held out. Whizzer takes it.

 “Whizzer,” he says, with his lips caught between a smirk and an amicable smile. Then, like a liar, he adds, “I’ve only heard good things, I swear,”

 Marvin scoffs, “I doubt that,”

 Whizzer’s still holding his hand. Whizzer’s hand is really warm and soft. Marvin coughs awkwardly and pulls his own hand back.

  _This is all very strange,_ Marvin concludes, sitting back down.

 “Well, then,” Whizzer sits next to him, “What exactly brings you here, Marvin?”

 “I just wanted to check it out,” Marvin’s eyes flit around the room. He can’t seem to keep still today, what the fuck, “Trina mentioned it. Got curious, you know?” he’s rambling a little bit. God, something’s wrong with him today.

 “Didn’t curiosity kill the cat?” Whizzer grins. Marvin makes the mistake of looking at him. Their eyes meet. Marvin feels his skin burn up again.

 “Satisfaction brought it back,” he manages to respond, after looking for air and more eloquent words in his lungs and drawing a blank. It thankfully doesn’t sound like too much of a wheeze, despite his lack of breath. Whizzer laughs again.

 “Yeah, I guess it did,” he stands. Marvin finds himself following Whizzer’s movement with his eyes, finds his stare trailing up Whizzer’s frame (Christ, his legs are so long, it’s kind of unbelievable) until it lands on the lazy, lopsided smirk Whizzer is flashing him.

 “I’ll see you when the pictures get taken?”

 It’s a rhetorical question they both know the answer to. Marvin answers out loud anyway.

 “Yes. Of course,”

 

* * *

 

 

  _Normal._ Marvin mulls over that word a lot. He mulls over it on the drive to the photography studio, the air tense between him and Trina next to him in the passenger seat and Jason sulking behind them. He pulls over and twists the key. The engine’s revving fades off.

 “Okay, our stop,” he says with a smile that he’s sure looks about as fake as he feels it is.

 Jason grumbles, “Do we _really_ ,” as he gets off the car, careful not to slam the door shut. Marvin feels Trina’s fingers brush his arm lightly. An act. An act Marvin isn’t sure he should gag at or push her away at or allow.

 “Let’s not fight today,” she says in a soft voice. “For the photo,”

Marvin nods and lets her grab onto his elbow. The gesture makes his stomach lurch, but he’ll have to suck it up. “I wonder how it’ll turn out,” he hears Trina say offhandedly.

 Marvin thinks back to the family pictures hanging on Whizzer’s studio’s walls, of his words as they’d watched the fairly happy family take their leave— _“Kind of a rare sight, that kinda family.”_

 On a whim, Marvin says, “Normal.”

 Trina looks up but doesn’t say anything. Jason makes his way to Marvin’s other side and Marvin looks at him, his pride and joy, with a smile as he ruffles his son’s hair with the hand that Trina isn’t holding onto.

 They stop before the door. Marvin checks his watch. One PM.

 He knocks.

 Marvin’s a hundred percent certain that the weird, fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach and the flush on his cheeks when the door opens to reveal Whizzer aren’t, by any means, relatively close to _normal_. But he sees Whizzer’s smile, and sees the little twist in it and the little glint in his eye when he locks gazes with Marvin— and Marvin finds himself wondering, _What exactly is normal?_

 “Hello,” Whizzer says cheerfully, “Glad you’re here, come in, come in,”

 And as Trina ushers Jason inside, Whizzer and Marvin’s eyes meet again. And Whizzer smiles with those sweet lips of his, and Marvin has to swallow, and maybe Whizzer’s looking at Marvin up and down again with those scrutinizing eyes of his, looking at Marvin’s throat when he swallows down the nerves, and maybe Marvin doesn’t mind.

 “Pictures?” Whizzer asks in a voice so low that Marvin barely catches what he’d said.

 “Yeah,” Marvin swallows again, “Pictures.”

  _So what is normal?_ Marvin asks himself as he follows Whizzer inside, trying to calm down because there’s something very wrong going on around here and it’s screwing with his nerves.

 Marvin wouldn’t know.

**Author's Note:**

> ,,,,,,,,,,thank you for reaching this far and i hope it was worth your time and that you enjoyed hhgdfgh
> 
> leave a kudos or comment if you feel up to it, they make my day honestly. anyways. that's all. nyx out!


End file.
